The Honour of Aeducan
by Takhallus
Summary: A prince of the dwarves is sentenced to walk the Deep Roads and fight the Darkspawn until he dies. As two sons to King Endrin are lost in the same day, many begin to doubt the much-vaunted honour of House Aeducan.
1. Chapter 1

"Having been found guilty of fratricide, you have been sentenced to exile and death by the Assembly of Orzammar."

Guran could do nothing but hear the words of Lord Harrowmont in stunned silence. The coarse fabric of the clothes he had been made to wear during his stay in Orzammar's prison chafed uncomfortably, but it was as though his physical pains were in a world separate from his mind, which could do nothing but replay the events of the last few days, over and over.

"Guran. Look me in the eye and tell me that you did not slay your brother. For your father's sake." Harrowmont's voice was as a weak and pale imitation of its usual self. Guran recalled having heard the old dwarf speak before the Assembly once, on a matter of taxation or trade tariffs or some other question that had bored him out of his skull. The one thing he had remembered was how powerfully and emotionally Harrowmont had argued his case, with a powerful, booming voice that had echoed throughout the hall, even though he could now remember neither the question nor Harrowmont's position in regards to it.

The iron longsword that Gorim had given him as they parted ways weighed heavily on his back. He knew that he could strike the old dwarf down where he stood. Harrowmont had been a great warrior, once, but Guran reckoned that age and soft living had weakened his body long ago. Turning his head to look directly into the High-General's eyes for the first time in days, he could see that Harrowmont was thinking the same thing. Guran clenched his fists, then released them, then clenched them, then released them again. The motion felt good. He had barely moved at all since his imprisonment.

"Have you nothing to say for yourself?" The old dwarf's voice was hopeful, begging. Guran straightened his back, feeling his vertebrae crackle. Harrowmont winced at the sound, and Guran noted that his impression of King Endrin's chief advisor seemed accurate. He kept his gaze firmly fixed on Harrowmont's eyes as he opened his mouth to speak.

"No." He had meant to say more, but the words would not come. He could feel a lump forming in his throat, and he lowered his gaze again. Harrowmont, no doubt, would take this as an admission of guilt, but it did not matter any longer. Nothing mattered. In Harrowmont's eyes, and the eyes of every other dwarf in Orzammar, he was already dead. He was less than dead. His name was to be removed from all records, all evidence of his existence destroyed. It would only be a matter of days before he was dead in body as well as in name.

"So be it. Open the gates and let the condemned walk forth." At the High-General's words, the giant, elaborately carved stone gates swung open, as though the Stone itself would not suffer Guran's presence in Orzammar any longer. Slowly, stumbling, Guran stepped forward. He felt as though he would fall over forward if he walked any faster, and as he looked out towards the Deep Roads before him, he realized that for the first time in his life, he was truly alone. Gorim had always been at his side before, and on the few occasions that Gorim had been absent, there were always others. His brothers, Frandlin Ivo, Adal Helmi and her sister, Nerav… Even if none of them had been present, there had always been guards, servants, and others seeking to gain favour with House Aeducan. And now the Deep Roads lay ahead, and he was alone. As the gates shut behind him, for the first time in his life Guran Aeducan, former prince and commander of Orzammar, felt truly afraid.


	2. Chapter 2

Three weeks had passed since Guran Aeducan had been cast out of his home in Orzammar into the Deep Roads that surrounded the mighty city, and he knew that he had already survived for far longer than had been expected of him. When he had been a prince of Orzammar, he had been known as a man of dignity, of integrity, of honour. Always perfectly dressed in ceremonial armour, standing silently at his father's side, he had been the very image of a dwarven prince. Now his clothes were in tatters, haphazardly repaired with whatever materials he had been able to scrounge from the bodies of dead Warrior Caste fighters. His hair and beard had grown wild and unruly, as he had begun to remove the golden jewellery that had been braided into it so that he could have something, anything, to offer the few Casteless smugglers who dared to venture into the Deep Roads to scavenge, often at a mere fraction of its actual value. Only two things now remained that reminded him of who he had once been. The first was the sword, a final gift from his loyal second, Ser Gorim. The second was his signet ring, gold and emblazoned with the crest of House Aeducan. They had come to take it from him, when he was in his cell, but he had hidden it, and they had been forced to conclude that he must have lost it. It had pained him to deceive those who were only attempting to loyally serve the King and the Assembly, but he needed the ring.

He had been given no food as he left Orzammar, as he was meant to die as quickly as possible once the gates closed behind him, but he had found ways to sustain himself. Water gathered in small pools, strewn across the tunnels of the Deep Roads, from underground reservoirs and other such things, and he had learned to follow the traces of nugs to find these pools. He had learned, painfully at first, to separate poisonous mushrooms from edible ones, and he was learning, slowly, how to draw out the tezpadam from their hiding places and holes, and how to kill them with his bare hands in order not to waste the edge of his sword, which he had no means of sharpening. And perhaps the most painful lesson of all, yet perhaps the most useful, had been that in the Deep Roads, you are never truly alone.

There was always something watching in the Deep Roads. If it was not one of the lyrium-crazed giant spiders, watching silently from their intricate webs in the shadows and roofs of the tunnels, waiting for the perfect moment to pounce on an unsuspecting dwarf to devour him alive, if it was not a pack of sharp-toothed tezpadam that had curled up to pass for a pile of rocks, then it was the Darkspawn. Guran had learned that there could always be a Genlock waiting around the next corner, tearing the ears off nugs and feeding the screeching creatures to a pack of captured tezpadam, or sharpening their foul, rusty swords or nocking black-fletched arrows with crude shortbows that not even a Casteless dwarf would deign a worthy weapon, or engaged in some brutal competition of strength with one another that often ended in the tunnel floor and walls covered in their black, tar-like blood. His first encounter alone with a Darkspawn had been on the third day of his banishment, when he had finally given up hope of the gates ever re-opening and Lord Harrowmont emerging to present him the Assembly's pardon, and he had for the first time ventured further into the Deep Roads as his hunger had become too great to ignore. Lack of food and sleep had made him lethargic and his movements sluggish and loud, and before long, he had felt a dull thud against his shield-arm as a Genlock arrow had impacted against the low-quality shield he had been given. The imminent danger to his life had rejuvenated him, filled him once more with a purpose, as he could now see the face of the enemy he had been sent to the Deep Roads to fight.

Standing his ground, he had put his back against the wall and raised his shield, prepared to wait out the Genlock until it finally had enough of shooting at his shield. While the shield was not of good make, it could still withstand any crude Darkspawn arrow, and it was not long before the foul creature had drawn its own blade and rushed against Guran in a fit of rage that, when he recalled it later, he had never seen the like of before in his life. The Darkspawn fought like possessed, and before long, Guran had received a long, shallow gash on his sword-arm from the creature's curved blade, but it had in return found itself on the receiving end of a powerful blow from his shield, which distracted it long enough for Guran to run it through to the hilt.

Even later, he could remember the foulness of the Genlock's form as it drew its dying breaths. Its face was a mockery of that of a dwarf. Its mouth was drawn up in a foul grin, displaying a ragged set of razor-sharp teeth. It was completely bald, but its head and face had been covered in unsightly lumps, that made it look as though its head had been made by an unskilled or perhaps even drunken potter, just throwing clay together in a shape approximating that of a head and deciding that it would be good enough. He did not even want to recall its soulless, black eyes, peering out from sunken-in sockets directly into his, eyes that seemed to know that although Guran had been victorious this day, there would be many more days like this one in the future, and one of them would see the dwarf skewered on a sword much like this one.

Many days had passed since that one, and many more Darkspawn now lay dead in his wake, but Guran knew that he could only keep it up for so long. His wounds were beginning to slow him down, and he needed a place where he could rest and regain his strength. Fortunately, he thought he knew just the place...


End file.
